April 27, 2007

The Morning News had a fun prompt up the other day, inviting their writers to post a quick description of the last song they heard. Most of the songs are linked so that we can hear them too, which is awesome. If you’re so inclined, give Tamacun a listen (scroll two-thirds of the way down the page) – it’s lovely.

There’s also link to the Cat Stevens song I Love My Dog. I’m going to write a song called I Love Cat Stevens one of these days.

After I scrubbed the floor, I bleached the hell out of the sponge and toothbrush. I put the sponge back under the kitchen sink, and I left the toothbrush behind the kitchen’s sink faucet, for easy access the next time I am hit with the irresistable desire to scrub grout.

Anybody see where this is going? Anybody?

CRISTIAN USED IT TO BRUSH HIS TEETH THIS MORNING. HE USED THE FLOOR TOOTHBRUSH ON HIS TEETH.

I almost died. No. I did die, and then I came back to life, and Cristian was spitting and gagging, demanding to know why I would

Use a toothbrush to clean the floor

Bleach said toothbrush, thereby disguising it as a perfectly clean and suitable toothbrush

Leave said toothbrush next to the sink, an open invitation to any bypassers concerned about their dental hygiene.

I, on the other hand, am left wondering

Who uses a toothbrush left sitting behind a kitchen faucet? Isn’t there a universal understanding that toothbrushes are no longer for teeth once they’ve been stowed in such a way?

Who chooses an old kitchen toothbrush (doesn’t even have an angle!) when there’s a $90.00 supersonic toothbrush designed by dentist astronaut brain surgeon scientists in the bathroom?

April 25, 2007

When I’m out driving, and I see a cyclist/motorcylist without a helmet, I shriek Get a helmet! Get a helmet! at them from inside my car.

With very little prompting, I burst into florid speeches on the importance of health insurance. These speeches universally end with the spooky declaration that by the time you know you need it, it’s too late.

I own a toothbrush that is worth $90.00.

When I get upset, 95% of the time I manage to remember to wait and see if I am still upset the next day before reacting. Genius.

April 24, 2007

Yesterday I decided to get really serious about cleaning my kitchen floor. I got out some bleach and a heavy duty sponge, filled up a bucket with some hot water & bleach, and then I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed.

I had never scrubbed a floor by hand before. Wow, I thought as the dirt came up, this is really working! This is great! Of course there were a couple stubborn spots, but once I went and found an old toothbrush, they cleaned up nicely too.

I finished, stood up, and smiled at my floor. My floor gleamed back at me.

And then I realized that I had just spent 40 minutes scrubbing my kitchen floor with a toothbrush, and that those 40 minutes were the most satisfying 40 minutes of my day.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying, I think I’m ready to turn 29. I should probably be turning 80 based on that story, but either way, the twenties are clearly on the wane.

April 19, 2007

I’ve stayed away from most coverage of the Virgina shooting. There’s literally nothing I can do about it. It’s over, and I don’t see how feasting off the suffering left in its wake has any benefit. Global warming, the Iraq war, the healthcare crisis we’re dealing with – all of these are news stories that are upsetting and depressing, but they’re also ongoing, and, through our polical process, we have an opportunity to do something about them ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha oh God, that’s depressing.

Few things make me feel more alienated from other Americans than television news, and that does double for TV NEWS EXPLOSIONS. How the shit did Nancy Grace get a show? How the shit did that bitch get a show?

I know I sound like I have a BBC stick up my butt here, but come on. If you used cable news to judge the content of American character, this is what you’d come away with:

These people are emotional vampires.

No really, they’re vampires.

Spoiled, spoiled emotional vampires.

They also have terrible priorities.

And so we have this horrible tragedy in Virginia, and the news vans are there, and then it turns out that the guy who killed all those people – and himself – made a freaking media package about the murders – and then I go out to dinner and while I’m eating bar-b-que I get to watch. Along with all the other bar-b-que eaters.

There is something seriously wrong with that.

The restaurant had the TV on, volume way up, and look! here’s the sociopath aiming his gun at the camera. Oh, and over here we have a picture of him looking completely normal – what could that possibly mean? Let’s turn to our resident pychologist. The resident psychologist has been given the gift of great insight, and therefore can say with great certainty, “Something was obviously seriously wrong with this guy.”

April 11, 2007

Cristian and I went to Hot Springs, Arkansas, two weekends ago, for our fifth anniversary. After reading the ball rag post and this one, I’m sure many of you will wonder how on Earth either one of us has managed to stay alive for the past five years, never mind find someone to date. This world is a place of mystery.

But hey! 5 years! Off we went. To this place, of which I will write soon.

We left Friday morning, and by Friday afternoon, I was feeling…..bleh. Just bleh. By Saturday afternoon, I was feeling definitively bleh, so bleh that I was having trouble mustering any excitement about this, which is just wrong. And sad.

I had a sinus infection.

Human sinuses are strong evidence of evolution, don’t you think? I’m sure if God created us fresh from dirt, we would all have functioning sinuses, sinuses that used fairy dust, or maybe WD-40, but definitely not mucus, to deal with air pollutants. Also, our sinuses wouldn’t drain simultaneously into our nostrils, ears and throats.

Unless God is still the Old Testament God, not the New Testament one.

Anyway. I went to CVS and stood in the very, very long, slow pharmacy line to buy some 24 hour, extra-strength Sudafed. In my long history of sinus problems, I have tried everything. Netti pots, dairy free diets, homeopathy, acupuncture, Chinese medicinals, you name it. Nothing works as well as Sudafed.

And here is where I begin to struggle to explain myself, my thought process……..

Actually, it’s not hard to explain. It’s very American. You can sum it up like this:

MORE = BETTER

That is so embarrassing to admit. But that’s how my brain works. I blame TV.

So there I was, on an anniversary weekend, many dollars sunk into having a really memorable, wonderful weekend, and my sinuses felt like the Tar Pits of La Brea.

“Body, we are not doing this. Sickness is not allowed,” said Mind, which is actually part of Body, but don’t tell Mind that. Then Mind starting feeding Body one 24 hour Sudafed about every 10th hour.

Well, Body is Body, and no matter how stubborn or determined Mind gets, Body continues to follow certain immutable laws of biology and chemistry. By day 3 of Operation Iraqi Freedom Operation Extreme Mucus Management, Mind had fed Body approximately 4 times as much Sudafed as it should have. But Mind was sure Body could handle it. It’s just Sudafed, Body, don’t be such a big baby.

And actually, Body was doing ok.

And then. And then, dear reader, I had a Mimosa. Ok, two Mimosas. Two big Mimosas. But it was our last day! We were leaving! I was going to have to do laundry when I got home! We were having a relaxed, lovely morning, and I had planned – planned! – to have Mimosas with my breakfast, and yes I know that alcohol is the very, very, very worst thing you could ever expose an irritated sinus to, it’s just like a red flag in front of a bull, but I had a plan! I wanted to stick to my plan! I deserved those goddamn Mimosas, and Mimosas have orange juice, so that, like, totally balances out anyway.

I am an idiot.

So, two Mimosas down the hatch and one stroll through the woods later, I started feeling a little…..whirly. Cristian and I were dumping the water out of a very large and heavy cooler off the porch balcony, and it suddenly became very clear to me that I needed to sit down. Sit down right away.

“Cristian,” I said. “I have to go sit down, right away.” But I don’t know that he heard me, because I had already left to go sit down.

I schlumped onto the couch and immediately felt about 80% better. But still whirly. Whirly from the couch, I discovered, was rather enjoyable.

Cristian came inside. “What is wrong with you?” he asked.

I laughed. And laughed. The room whirled. It was rather magical.

“You are wasted.” he said. “How did you get wasted?”

And I laughed some more. I had no freaking idea how I got wasted. The Sudafed connection hadn’t occurred to me yet.

Cristian laughed too. But maybe a little bit less, because we still had a lot of cabin cleaning and car packing to do before we left.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine in a minute,” I said, having no idea what I was in for. “I’m sorry, but I just have to sit here for a minute.”

Cristian shook his head and went off to do some dishes. The deer head mounted on the wall above me winked and smiled. I rested my head on a soft, lovely pillow, closed my eyes, and drifted. Eventually I heard the sink turn off and realized that Cristian had just done a shitload of dishes, all by himself.

I had to maintain, I realized. I had to represent.

I stood up. And quickly sat right back down. Because standing up? Was God-awful.

Upon sitting down I realized that standing up had somehow irrevocably changed the whirly experience, and sitting down now was only slightly less God-awful.

This would be about the time that I realized that I had taken 7 Sudafed in 3 days. And had been drinking wine all weekend. Including a generous amount of champagne that morning.

I’ll fast forward through the next hour. I sat at the kitchen table, with my cheek resting on its cool, cool laminate, and barked packing/cleaning directions at Cristian, like the most dissipated dictator in the history of the world. Like Kim Jong Il.

“The windows! We have to close all the windows!”

“Don’t forget the shoes. On the porch.”

“Oh! And the badminton rackets. On the porch.”

“Did you look on the porch? Did you get our stuff off the porch?”

“The windows, too. Remember we have to close the windows.”

“Did you get our shoes off the porch? I need my shoes.”

A rather dim Kim Jong Il, who could only repeat herself. And whose suggestions were particularly unhelpful.

Somewhere in the last 15 minutes before we left it occurred to me that the lovely, wonderful people who owned the cabin had mentioned they were coming home right around the time we planned to leave, and that they hoped to meet us.

Leaving, right away, was suddenly very important.

“Cristian, we have to go. Are we ready? Are we ready to go? We have to go right now. Are you ready?”

Cristian suffered in silence, much like the people of North Korea.

Motivated by pride, and pride alone, I stood up, grabbed a suitcase, and carried it 80% of the way to the car. This would later be determined to be my sole contribution to our departure from the cabin.

I then set the suitcase down in the dirt, lurched the last ten feet to the car, got in, sat down, flung my arm over my face, and waited. Waited for Cristian, waited for the horrific whirling to stop, waited for my pulse to slow down, just waited. Cristian eventually finished loading the car and off we drove.

“Thank God,” I thought, “at least I managed to preserve a scrap of dignity.”

Twenty minutes later, Cristian pulled over so I could puke out the car window, all down the side of the car. Our timing was such that I did it in front of a very horrified family coming out of a driveway. In a mini-van.

April 10, 2007

Acute bronchitis usually lasts approximately 10 or 11 days. It may accompany or closely follow a cold or the flu, or it may arrive unaccompanied by any other condition. It is contagious, and it starts out with a dry cough, frequently waking the sufferer up at night. After a few days it progresses to a wetter, productive cough, which may be accompanied by a low grade fever, fatigue, and headache. The fever, fatigue, and malaise may last only a few days, but the wet cough may last up to several weeks. For some people, the cough may last as long as a few months as the bronchial tubes heal slowly.

The coughing, oh my Christ, the coughing. I would call it karma, but Cristian has been suffering just as much, if not more, because he has to hear it. And it is grotesque.

I’m trying to keep my spirits up by pretending I’m Beth from Little Women (didn’t she die of tuberculosis? Sorry if I just spoiled the ending for anybody), but I can’t seem to keep a corset on for more than 2 minutes at a go……..